Quilters are always on the search for the best iron. For regular sewing on the ironing board, I use a Black & Decker Digital Advantage and am happy with it. But if I'm ironing more than a small length or two of fabric, I turn on my Ironrite mangle ironer. It is a joy to use--both because it irons yardage quickly and beautifully (I can't imagine ironing dyed yardage without it) and because each time I sit at the machine, I think about my mother. My mother would wheel the machine into the kitchen when it was time to iron. She used it not only for sheets and tablecloths, but also for my father's shirts. She was delighted, though, when cotton/polyester blends eliminated the need for her to iron, and when she and my dad moved to a condo, the ironer was stored in the basement. She would have given it away, but I said I was interested in it. I wasn't a quilter then, but I like linen table cloths, and my mother and her sister had both given me all of theirs, as they were happy with permapress replacements. Ironing a linen table cloth by hand is really tedious, though, so I didn't use the tablecloths very much. When my parents died in 2003 and we emptied their condo, the Ironrite came to me. By that time, I was also quilting, and I use it regularly. Nothing like it. I'm guessing this one was purchased in the 1940s (my parents married in 1942), and it is still working fine. They are no longer made, but can sometimes be found online. For a website with information: http://hubpages.com/hub/Ironrite_Mangle_IronerAnd if you're interested to see how the ironer works, check out this great promotional video from the 40s: https://archive.org/details/MakingaN1946_2
The video begins with the fancy stuff (helps me remember how my mother did my father's shirts), but for the demonstration of ironing flat yardage, fast forward to 6:30 for sheets (you wouldn't want to fold up the material first like this, but you'll see how the general process works). Don't miss the scene at 7:37 of what happens with the sheets. Then keep watching from 7:57 to see her do a tablecloth (no folds--this is how I do yardage).
Here's the machine closed up. My mother put some gray contact paper on top--she used that surface for folding laundry.
I like the company logo:
